Aronov Y. Professional Culture of a Lawyer and its Importance for Legal Practice

The dissertation covers theoretical and legal aspects of the professional culture of a lawyer and its importance for legal practice. The thesis work reflects results from the analysis of the essence of "professional culture a lawyer" term, that refers the term to a multicultural phenomenon, which is being recognized as a kind of general culture of a person, the essence of which is determined by the ontology of the legal profession and which reflects work experience of a lawyers, both spiritual and material, and also – societal expectations on professional activities of a lawyers. The author substantiates the provision on the differentiation of the process of formation of the professional culture of a lawyer with the distinction of its three stages. The thesis formulates the definition of the concepts of “legal culture of a lawyer”; “moral culture of a lawyer”; “political culture of a lawyer”; “economic culture of a lawyer”. The dissertation justifies the necessity of unification of professional requirements for lawyers and its objectification in the form of a normative and legal act, which is especially relevant in conditions when the professional requirements are being ignored, and the professional association is not an effective regulator of the professional environment. The introduction of standard for behavior at the local level, in particular within the framework of lawyer associations, which will strengthen the control over the implementation of these norms, will be an important direction for increasing the effectiveness of moral and ethical norms. The paper also gives reasons for the provision on the necessity to form a new type of a lawyer, who in addition to appropriate qualification, should be a professional with the skills of integrated solution of the problems, critical and creative thinking, high self-organization, the ability to manage people and to interact with others; he/she must be a hard-working person with cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence. Epistemology of the models of professional culture of a lawyer in Ukraine and Europe provides for the isolation in the architectonics of specified models of the following elements: ideological, moral and ethical, educational, state and political, contamination of which allows to recreate the integral image of a lawyer. It is substantiated that the approximation to the European standards of legal activities should become a priority direction of the legal profession development during 2018-2020, which should be reflected both in normative acts and in the day-to-day activities of lawyers in Ukraine.